Aleksandar
Supercharge a geothermal geoair climate battery for a greenhouse by using just some Pex tubing and several solar evacuated tube arrays in addition to weeping tile so you can thermostatically control the amount of heat needed in cold winters so you can grow organic tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and more all year long even in -40′ temperatures.
Kirsten Dirksen’s channel did a video on Russ Finch’s geoair geothermal greenhouse -” Nebraska retiree uses earths’s heat to grow oranges in snow ” often called Citrus in the Snow – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD_3_gsgsnk&t=268s
LDS Prepper built a geoair geothermal greenhouse here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA3YGYELZ98&list=PL2cLVMJiux-nD4s7Ofby9ah835Xi9hnq8
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Simple Tek
Would this work to heat up a small house? If you would dig in the middle of the house 6 feet deep? I saw this system with only the solar part. Not the air pipes. It heated up but not enough. There was also a woodstove.
Powering the pump via solar electric completes the project
Western Washington State is practically sunless in the winter, must I supplement light as well?
Are you running the Pex tubing inside the large black tubing, or outside of it?
What is weeping tile? I did not hear that mentioned in the video?
I'd like to see the experiment or test case that proves you can supercharge the ground to 70 degrees Celsius … that is how. Frankly, I'm skeptical.
I love the idea of enhanced climate batteries.
Here's an idea I had for my greenhouse.
Because of the challenges presented by digging up and insulating a huge mass of earth, I ended up with rather short, shallow un-insulated runs of pipe under my greenhouse.
With a smaller un-insulated mass, annualized storage is impractical, so daily storage is my aim.
To backstop against a days with no solar gain, I plan on using an indoor TLUD system to heat with woodchips while making charcoal, or a mass less rocket stove.
Water boiled into steam will be blown through the thermal mass to maximize the transfer of BTUs via the phase change from water vapor to condensation.
The condensed water will travel downward and outward into the soil till it reaches 0 degrees.
That's the theory anyway.
I think a reflective trough collector with an evacuated tube could produce steam for this kind of storage.
Storing heat in summer for use in winter just doesn't pencil out. When you do the math a small low R structure like a greenhouse needs a massive heatsink that extends for tens of meters on all sides. You can drag a bit of heat forward to help you through a stormy week, but for the most part you are recharging your heat battery during the day and discharging it at night.
If you're 10 feet below ground, how do you deal with condensation in your tubing? I've heard of perforated pipe being used but doesn't that create another problem if you're below the water table? Especially in spring time?
As I understand, normally the bottom of the climate battery is not insulated to get access to the heat deeper in the ground. However it seems to me that if you want to make this "supercharged" climate battery, it would make sense to insulate also the bottom. My logic behind this is that in a normal climate battery you cant heat the earth up much more than the deeper layers of the ground but in the supercharged version the temperature difference between the battery (70 C) and ground below (10-15 C) would become substantial and therefore the heatloss would be too big. What are your thoughts on this?
Hi Simple Tek, interesting system. Questions? I have a small greenhouse I am building (10 x 20 feet). It will be 4 feet below the surface, already dug out a 5 x 10 ' area by hand (N.B. has lots of rocks seeds, they grow over time). How many feet of pipe will I need to keep greenhouse near 10c +? I will be going down 10 to 12 feet and have room for at least 250 feet. Is there a site I can contact you through to fill in some other questions. thanks, Mark
Amazing! Inspiring! Thanks you! Holy crap you have a Lotta videos I just looked
what if you ran the pex through the air tubes,wouldnt that get more air heat?
Store it in the ground from summer all the way through winter? No. Your said system would help make it warmer but it will be inefficient. The ground conducts heat and is constantly losing any additional heat in the system to the surrounding mass. Nearly all energy generated in the summer would be long gone before winter. Solar thermal operates at a max 190' F (temperature at which glycol breaks down) which means if it did get the ground to this temperature it would have to dump all remaining heat to the air. Any plants planted in the ground would have their roots cooked. Earth climate batteries are, in terms of heating, only good at keeping greenhouse temperatures just over freezing. For your solar thermal, it would only be beneficial during cold months. The system would be cheaper and more efficient to pipe the heated water into a water storage tank that is located inside the greenhouse. This eliminates heat loss to the surrounding earth because all heat loss is released directly into the greenhouse where you want it. This would also afford additional thermal mass to further regulate the temperature and require far less hardware. Expectations should be that the amount of solar thermal collectors installed generate as many BTU's as your daily loss at the desired temperature or the system will not live up to the hype. Additional consideration should be given that the amount of water storage for your heat is adequate to store (and release!) what you generate daily.
Are you insane? 80 degrees Celsius converts to 176 F. You would destroy all soil biology at that point. Worms and plants do not like temps well beyond 82 degrees F.
Hi Simple Tek,
5 months since your last post. I hope all is well. How are the greenhouse builds going? Cheers,
Bill
How is it working? Sounds awesome but it would be great to see it in practice. Also, how is your geodesic dome?
where did you source the solar equipment?
HowToFarmAndGarden.com a youtube channel has a good series on a geothermal greenhouse that is getting 50+ degrees year around from the climate battery from the ground only in NW Montana.
have you tried adding this to a standard climate battery? or is it just theory?
i whant to see thermodynamics behind this otherwise your given infformation is useless
I watched your geodesic dome build video from a year ago. Do you have a video on the double-wall covering that you talked about? How is the dome working now?
I always wondered how you could use a citrus in the snow greenhouse further notth where the average ground temp is colder. Thank you! I've always loved this video you linked to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD_3_gsgsnk By Kirsten and you seem to have added the needed second element for earth batteries to work in Canada and not just Nebraska!
when burying the pipes on the ground, should it be below the frost line ?